◎The Ancient Melody--Guanglingsanby Xiong Yan tr. Lush Greenness Suppose I returned to my native land, I would keep a grove of bamboo, and acquire two practical skills. One is to make home brews; the other to forge iron. Drinking liquor I’d like to enjoy, with dense bamboos around. In case there is no company with me, I invite a full moon, and two wafts of breeze as well. Three cupfuls down, I’m to pour some drink into the undergrowth For mole crickets and ants to taste my bile in the body, My gumption in the abdomen, salt and blood in my bones. The wind gently dancing and the wavering bamboo shades, Those surely are my soliloquy. Let the smithy arranged outside my thatched cottage. There quenching-treated iron is for me to strike repeatedly, Grind carefully, and forge it gradually into sharp knives. Listen, those continuous striking clangs are equal to My scalding heartbeats in the chest And rising tides in my veins and arteries. Besides, my incisive blade is only to scrape the bone clear of toxin— To cure sicknesses and save the patients. Hey, to this age full of flicking shadows I cannot present hypocritical bouquets and praises. I can but hold painful wounds and healing tears in both hands.